Policy Lunchbox - Digital Science

kaitlin thaneypolicy lunchbox, 3 aug 2011charles darwin house, london

digital science and the future of online research

xi. background

technology companypublisher link

london, nyc, tokyo

investment armincubator rolein-house dev

tiered approachbuild to scale

researcher-focused

1. science is changing

1. science is changing(and the research workflow)

research

idea

experiment

lit review

materials

publish

share results

retestanalyze

collect data

blocking points

idea

experiment

lit review

materials

publish

share results

retestanalyze

collect data

(to name a few ... )

types of information

idea

protocolsparameters

content

the non-digital “stuff”

articlesproceedings

share results

retestanalysissynthesis

datasets

(will revisit later)

prof activitiesmentorship

patents

text texttext

roadblocks(to name a few) ...

specialisation of tools (+/-)interoperability

accessibilitydesign decisionsthe “social issue”

2. key constituencies

(3)

machines

researchers

decision makers

machines

researchers

decision makers

...annotation

markupsearch

discovery“behind the

scenes”...

still the starting point

patents are no better(in many cases, worse)

can streamline

name disambiguation

10,11-dihydro-5-methyl-5H-dibenzo[b,e][1,4]diazepin-11-one

(still strains the minds of the best)

machines

researchers

decision makers

CC-BY-2.0 - Plaxco Lab - http://www.flickr.com/photos/34857812@N04/

trackingexpiration

the non-digital

+ordering

processing

protocols parameterscalibration

misc. lit

managing information

different types of “data”

“i invented a folder based system ...”

“i invented a folder based system ...”

“yeah, we had a LIMS. it only ever got used to store photos

from lab nights out.”

why?

experimentation reliance

data moves, grows legs

funder/instit’n pressure

machines

researchers

decision makers

how we measure impact, reputation etc.

data capture(of a different sort)

the “social issue”best practices

behaviour roadblocksdiscipline / researcher specific

paper’s still the currency

imperfect system

“Right now we're going through a Cambrian explosion of metrics.”

- Johan Bollen

Nature 465, 864-866 (2010) | doi:10.1038/465864a

there’s been a drastic spike in terms of sheer volume and type

citation / impact factorh - index

weighted citations (eigenfactor, sjr)“betweenness centrality”

alt-metrics, etc.

difficult to ... harmonise

track /maintain / mapunderstand

(even still measure)

tools for decision makers (research admin / funders)

using technology to spur cultural shift

what do we want on the back of our (science) baseball

cards?

“

“- paul groth (et al.)

Top Trumps

3. the reality

“the future is here ... just not evenly

distributed yet.”- William Gibson

changing understandings,

paradigms

technology can helpdesign decisions are key

plan for the irrational

more efficient researchincrease productivityenable reproducibility

thank you.

k.thaney@digital-science.comwww.digital-science.com

@kaythaney